We tried having hermit crabs a couple times. For a family that was in contact with hundreds of animals any given year, the hermit crabs seemed so stereotypical and silly.

And so I wanted one, of course. :P

Of all the animals we rescued, rehabilitated, raised, released (can I get any more 'r' words in there? recycled, reduced, reused??)....we couldn't keep those hermit crabs alive. I felt horrible for it, too, because what should be so hard about hermit crabs? I did all the research and was intrigued by how they choose new homes/shells and how hard it even is to make them feel safe enough to do that in captive environments like ours. They were comfortable to walk around, both in a tank and in our hands or on the floor, etc, but to change to larger shells is completely different. It has to be perfect.

That makes these shells even more amazing. Read more about the hermits moving into these man-made shells over at the NZ publication.